Page 45 of An Unusual Wager

“A mere detail.”

A long pause ensued, the rumbling of the wheels and the steady sound of trotting hooves pushing their way to the fore. Almost lulled by their rhythm. Jonathan would have begun to nod off once more had not Robert spoken again.

“I can see blood coming through the bandage on his shoulder. It must have started bleeding again.”

“Leave it alone. The doctor said to leave it in place. It needs to coagulate or something like that. I’m sure that’s what he said. Just like your foot had to when you nearly cut your big toe off with that axe.”

“But I hadn’t been beaten nearly to death.”

“Neither has Jonnie. Only beaten a little bit.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“Footpads.” Walter sounded definitely cagey at this point.

“You said there were seven of them.”

“They all went limping away, I can assure you. No one crosses Jonnie Dunster and Walter Farrington.”

“Jonnie doesn’t seem to have done too well out of it. He looks pretty ‘crossed’ to me.”

“Nonsense, as I already explained when you first arrived, he killed one and near blinded another. I can tell you they departed in a worse state than they left us in, dragging their tails behind them. The sight of the doctor’s pistols finished off any thoughts they had of further battery.” Again, Jonathan, even in his half-conscious state, divined that Walter was not quite telling the truth.

“I still don’t much like it. Supposing…” His voice was so low now as to be almost impossible to hear. “Supposing he dies. It’ll be our fault. Your fault, really.”

A huff, none too confidently done, emerged from Walter. “He won’t do that, or I’ll have something to say about it.” Only Walter sounded nowhere near as confident as Jonathan would have liked.

“Let it be noted that I’m not in agreement with this kidnapping.”

Another huff from Walter. “Go to sleep. I’ll give him some more of this stuff if he wakes up again. Best if he don’t feel all the jolting about.”

The brothers fell silent for a few minutes.

Time ticked on.

Jonathan was nearly asleep when Robert spoke again, his voice a low hiss. “I’d damned well like to know what it was you were up to while that doctor was treating Jonnie. When you sloped off and left me alone with them. You were gone quite a while.”

“I said go to sleep,” Walter hissed back.

And silence finally fell.

Jonathan listened for a bit longer but neither spoke again, and pretty soon his attention waned and sleep took over. He dozed some more, drifting in and out of sleep, or possibly consciousness. He had no idea which but everything was very jumbled.

In one of his short waking periods, he tried moving his head. Just a little, this time. Something had improved, because he only managed to set off about three quarters as much pounding as earlier. From the bitter taste in his mouth he had a feeling someone had given him laudanum for the pain while he was dozing. Which might explain the strange feeling he now had of floating on a cloud. Perhaps he should try sleeping while he was feeling like this. Yes, that might be an excellent idea. His eyelids drooped and sleep took him again.

The next time Jonathan awoke, the pain was back with a vengeance. Pale morning light was filtering in around the dropped blinds on the carriage windows showing him Robert asleep in the opposite corner, head back and mouth inelegantly open. Walter’s legs poked out from the corner he couldn’t move his head to see. From the snoring, it seemed apparent that he too was asleep.

Jonathan lay still for a while trying to work out which bits of him were hurting the most. A difficult task as his body felt as though every square inch was in pain. What was this makeshift bed he lying on? His fingers found several layers of blankets under his body but they didn’t do enough to disguise the hardness of the bed. Might it be an old door? It certainly felt as though it could be.

His back hurt somewhere between his shoulder blades and all down his left side, and breathing hurt. Did he have broken ribs? He could now vaguely remember going to Gentleman Jackson’s. Had someone beaten him in the ring so badly he was in this much pain? Unlikely as he was considered to be among the best of the gentlemen who came to Jackson’s establishment. And surely the proprietor would have stopped a fight heading in that direction?

He tried to ease his position but that only sent pain slicing through him as though someone had stabbed him. Not that he knew what that felt like, but surely it must be something like this. The pain slowly centered on his right arm, his left shoulder, his ribs, his back, and his head. He was quite relieved to discover his legs seemed to be intact and undamaged.

How had he ended up like this? His brain refused to reveal this to him no matter how hard he tried to extract the information. And really, did it matter? He closed his one good eye again. Was the other one was so swollen he couldn’t open it? That did seem to fit with being at Gentleman Jack’s premises. He yawned. What time was it? Early? Why was he feeling so sleepy this early in the morning?

He dozed, but it was a sleep tormented by dreams, possibly made worse by the laudanum he’d been given. He was playing cards and a white-haired old gentleman was parading a string of girls in front of him in varying states of undress, offering them to him in payment of his debts. And all of them, disturbingly, had Verity’s face. Then he was at Luxborough and he and his father were standing at the top of the stairs, shouting at one another. The scene changed and he was standing over a blood-soaked bed. A woman was sobbing quietly and a baby cried. At last, the dreams faded and, exhausted, he fell into the deeper sleep he needed.

Sylvester Wintringham had not woken up to the sort of news he was expecting on the morning after the planned attack. His flustered valet arrived at a ridiculously early hour to inform him of a disturbing turn of events.